


Antichrist ex Machina

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Category: Good Omens, Supernatural
Genre: Adam Young is a BAMF, Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-01
Updated: 2011-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-26 18:10:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the angels suddenly vanished like they’d been clothes-lined out, Zachariah with bulging eyes and an indignant yell that cut off halfway through, the last person Sam expected to see standing there was Adam Young.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Antichrist ex Machina

If some people believed in the iron fist in the velvet glove approach, Zachariah’s approach was more like the iron fist in the iron gauntlet, Sam thought vaguely.  
   
He wasn’t thinking particularly clearly, but that was to be expected considering what Zachariah was doing to his insides.  
   
Dean was yelling and blustering at Zachariah – Sam could feel him oozing rage from here – but there wasn’t much you could do against an angel who had both you and your brother captive and happened to be torturing him.  
   
Sam would have liked to contribute to this particular dialogue, maybe call Zachariah some of the names he really deserved, but as it was he wasn’t really up to doing more than curling up in a ball and hoping that the pain stopped soon.  
 

* * *

  
When Sam was at Stanford, in some of his classes was a guy a few years older than he was.  
   
He was British, and as far as anyone could tell he wasn’t really studying _seriously_. Sure, he always did brilliantly in the classes that he liked (and scraped a pass in the ones that he didn’t) and somehow managed to balance his wild social life with his studies (pulling all-nighters sometimes to get his assignments done on the nights he didn’t go to parties), and he was one of the students who always got into animated discussion with the lecturer and anyone else who had even a mild interest in the topic. But when he was asked why he’d moved to America, and why he’d chosen to study at Stanford, the answers were always things like, _‘I came here for the ice-cream. 42 different flavours you’ve got, you know. Makes you wonder, if they’ve got that many flavours of ice-cream, what else’ve they got?_ ’ and ‘ _Well, I heard good things about Stanford, and if you’re going to do something, might as well do it properly._ ’ No one was quite sure whether he really meant it.  
   
It was impossible to ignore him. For a start, there was the way he _looked._ Movie stars had nothing on him. The guy was built like a Greek god, tall and slim but impressively muscular, with impossible golden curls and deep blue eyes. Sam hesitated to call another man _beautiful_ , but the fact was, that the guy _was_ beautiful. There was really no other word for it. _No one_ was that perfectly proportioned, or had those kind of chiselled features. He looked like someone an artist might come up with if they were trying to paint Adonis, or an angel – someone out of the imagination, not real life. Half the girls on campus were madly in love with him.  
   
Then there was the fact that the dude had this – Sam wasn’t even sure how to describe it – this kind of _presence,_ like around him the world was somehow better and more vivid than it was without him. And he was always perfectly friendly, with a slow, thoughtful way of talking that drew people in to listen, and a quiet authority in his voice that had them nodding along to whatever he said. It was strong enough that Sam had surreptitiously tried every test for magic that he knew – but no, apparently the guy really was just that charismatic.  
   
Sam didn’t really talk to him more than a few times: the two of them moved in totally different circles, but he was always well-mannered and amiable, and Sam couldn’t help but like him. _No one_ could help but like him. Somehow, he became _the_ person on campus who everyone knew, the person everyone talked to if they wanted to know what was going on.  
   
Then, after two semesters, he was suddenly gone – he’d gone back to England, everyone said, and every person Sam talked to had a different story about why – some people thought that he was like, royalty or something, and had come into an inheritance, other people thought he’d been offered a chance in a Bond movie, and then there was the person who said that no, really, the _truth_ was that he’d decided to become a village dentist, but everyone laughed that one away – but it didn’t really matter. The important part was that he was just _not there_ anymore, and somehow, intangibly, Sam thought, it was a little like something important and vital had died.  
   
The gossip went on for a few weeks, and then everyone abruptly seemed to forget about him. Sam couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed – everyone felt a little disappointed – but he didn’t expect to see the guy ever again.  
   
So, when the angels suddenly vanished like they’d been clothes-lined out, Zachariah with bulging eyes and an indignant yell that cut off halfway through, the last person Sam expected to see standing there was Adam Young.  
 

* * *

  
   
Sam spat out a mouthful of blood, his insides miraculously healing the moment that Zachariah was gone.  
   
“ _Adam?_ ” he exclaimed incredulously.  
   
It was undeniably Adam, even more radiant than Sam remembered and twice as lifelike, filling the entire room with his presence as he stood slouched in a Rolling Stones t-shirt. Adam’s musical tastes had never seemed to extend past the sixties, for some reason.  
   
“Hullo,” Adam said amiably, still slouching. Sam had only ever seen Adam unslouch once, when he caught sight of one of the humanities students refusing to take no for an answer from a girl at a party he and Sam had both been at.  
   
It had been enough to make Sam hope that he never had to see Adam unslouch again, because his expression had been terrifyingly serene and his voice perfectly calm the entire time.  
   
“Sam?” Dean demanded. “Who the hell is this?”  
   
“This – this is Adam Young,” Sam said dazedly. “Um, he was at Stanford. Adam – what – _how – ?_ ”  
   
Instead of responding, Adam turned a mediative gaze on Sam.  
   
It was undisturbed and thoughtful, even though Dean was now aiming a gun at him on the general principle that people who could just turn up and get rid of angels were probably dangerous, and something about the expression tugged worriedly at Sam’s memory and made the back of his neck prickle.  
   
“Thought I might come and help you out,” Adam said at last. “See, thing is, this is sort of my fault. Last time this happened I tried to sort everything out, but I missed a few things. I was only eleven, so it’s not surprising, but it seems to me that if I hadn’t missed a few things back then this wouldn’t be happening now, so I’d better fix it.”  
   
“…what?” Sam asked after a moment, completely bewildered.  
   
Next to him Dean looked just as baffled, although a lot more belligerent.  
   
Adam directed another considering look at Sam, although it wasn’t unkind.  
   
“Surprised you haven’t worked it out really, but alright. I’ll try a different way.” Adam turned his eyes to Dean. “You’ve got an angel working with you, don’t you? Then there’s the other one. Suppose that they should be here, too.”  
   
And Castiel was just suddenly there.  
   
There was no faint _thwap_ of wings this time, or any other warning: one minute  Cas wasn’t there, and the next, he was.  
   
He looked perplexed and startled for a second, and then his eyes landed on Adam.  
   
For the first time, Sam saw Castiel look _frightened_.  
   
Sam had no time to think about this, though, because another figure appeared, and took one look at Adam and went, “ _oh, balls_.”  
   
“That’s not very fair,” Adam said reasonably, as Castiel backed away in fear and Gabriel stared at him aghast. “It’s not like I’ve done anything. Maybe I just want to talk. It’s not like it’s nefarious, just wanting to talk. It’s a lot nicer than what everyone else is doing, for one thing.”  
   
With a shock of realisation and horror Sam finally got it. It was Adam’s air of determined reasonableness.  
   
“ _No,_ ” Sam blurted, because Adam was _nice_ , and yet the likeness was unmistakeable. “No fucking _way._ ”  
   
Compelling, obstinately reasonable, surrounded by the serene air of someone who knows that things will always go their way, and yet projecting a feeling of sympathetic understanding that made it hard to withstand him even when you were totally in opposition to him. Just like Lucifer.  
   
Adam glanced at Sam, looking pleased.  
   
“Knew you’d work it out,” he observed. “Nineteen years ago I was supposed to end the world. But the thing is, I’m fond of Earth and I quite like people, so I said no. They weren’t exactly going to take that for an answer, of course, so I shuffled things around a bit until they didn’t notice. Unfortunately I didn’t quite get everything, being only eleven and not knowing everything, and I didn’t realise they had a back-up plan. And when I stopped everything else they went straight to the back-up plan. You,” Adam added, unnecessarily. “They weren’t supposed to need the Vessels, first time round, but when I bollixed that one up everything went a bit differently.”  
   
Sam took a deep breath.  
   
“You’re not a Vessel, are you?”  
   
Adam grinned, warm and conspirational. Even now, it was impossible not to like him.  
   
“No, I’m not.”  
   
“ _Will someone tell me what the fuck is going on here?!_ ” Dean barked, losing what was left of his patience.  
   
Gabriel rolled his eyes. He looked less appalled to be here than he had a few minutes ago, although still wary.  
   
“You want to know what’s going on? Fine. Winchester, meet Lucifer Jr.”  
   
Dean stared at him.  
   
It took a minute for the words to sink in.  
   
“That was hurtful,” Adam told Gabriel reprovingly, while Dean was still processing.  
   
Sam was forcibly and surreally reminded of the time that Lucifer had told him earnestly, one night when Sam had been dreaming, that it hurt his feelings when Sam refused to listen to him.  
   
Adam had that same aggrieved air, at the idea that he was a junior version of Lucifer.  
   
It was at this point that Dean recovered enough to try and shoot him.  
   
The gun simply went _click._  
   
Adam turned to look at Dean.  
   
“That’s not nice, Mr Winchester.”  
   
He turned back to Gabriel.  
   
Dean was visibly unnerved. As Sam watched, he checked his gun, and Sam knew from the look on Dean’s face that it should have fired without a problem.  
   
“So, what, you want to just fix all this?” Gabriel demanded. His eyes were hard and a little hawklike, searching Adam’s face with a challenging stare. “Just wipe the slate clean and set the counter back to zero? Sure, because that worked _so_ well last time.”  
   
“Last time I was eleven,” Adam said evenly, leaning back and giving Gabriel a searching look of his own. “I’ve grown a lot.”  
   
Gabriel gave a sort of scornful snort, which might have been reluctant agreement.  
   
“You said that this has happened before,” Castiel said, staring at Adam with that look of frowning perplexity he often got when he wanted to understand something. He was carefully keeping out of arms reach, although what good that might do against someone who could apparently rewrite reality Sam didn’t know. “Why don’t I remember?”  
   
“I made you forget,” Adam said simply. “Seemed safer if everyone forgot. _He_ remembers,” he twirled a finger at Gabriel, “because he’s an archangel, and I’m standing right in front of him, so he can tell how everything’s distorting round me. But if I wasn’t here, he wouldn’t remember unless I wanted him to.”  
   
“Right, because that’s not creepy at all,” Gabriel commented, fishing for a chocolate bar in his pocket, which probably meant that he felt comfortable enough for his usual cocky façade, if nothing else.  
   
“Um,” said Sam. Adam turned to him curiously. “Can we just – back up a moment?”  
   
Adam waited patiently.  
   
“You,” Sam started, because it seemed important to get this completely straight, “what – rewrote reality?”  
   
Adam considered.  
   
“I suppose. More or less. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but I guess so. Suppose you could describe it like that.”  
   
Dean let out a carefully-controlled, disbelieving breath.  
   
“How?” Sam asked. How was that possible? How was Adam that powerful?  
   
“Oh, that’s easy,” Gabriel said through a mouthful of chocolate. “You met the cambion kid, right?”  
   
“Yes,” Cas said, beating Dean and Sam to it. Sam wondered how the archangel knew. How many times had he watched them, unseen, and Sam and Dean hadn’t had a clue?  
   
“Well, he was a lot more powerful than your standard demon, right? So how powerful do you think a nephil spawned by an archangel, by _Lucifer_ , no less, is going to be?”  
   
Everyone’s eyes slid to Adam. He met the stares with a placid gaze.  
   
“A nephil?” Dean questioned.  
   
“Oh, for – haven’t you done _any_ research?” Gabriel demanded. “When an angel and a human get it on, a nephil is the result.”  
   
“But – wouldn’t Lucifer still have been in the Cage when you were born?” Sam asked Adam, because he could do the math. “Without a Vessel?”  
   
“How would that even work?” Dean wanted to know.  
   
“I’d prefer not to answer that, actually, if you don’t mind,” said Adam. “It’s a bit of a personal question.”  
   
Gabriel gave a snicker.  
   
“Yeah, and you’d probably have to draw them a picture anyway. Heck, you might have to draw _me_ a picture.”  
   
He tilted his head back, and looked as though he were trying to imagine exactly what kind of picture Adam might have to draw.  
   
Adam levelled a finger at him.  
   
“ _You_ ,” Adam said severely, “are trying to be trouble on purpose. _I_ know. Stop it.”  
   
Gabriel looked briefly surprised, but shut up.  
   
“So,” Sam asked, “What now?”  
   
 Adam grinned.  
   
“Well, got to stop this Armageddon business, don’t we? Which means that no one can take you as Vessels, and Lucifer needs to be put back in his box before we can deal with Heaven. One thing at a time, I think. And I figure,” he added thoughtfully, “that it’d be awfully hard to take you as Vessels if you were angels.”  
   
You could have heard a pin drop.  
   
Everyone stared at him.  
   
Gabriel abruptly burst out laughing. He didn’t stop, either, and ended up doubled-over, gasping and wheezing, tears streaming from his eyes and bracing his hands on his knees to stay upright.  
   
“ _Angels?_ ” Dean repeated weakly. Sam knew how he felt.  
   
“Exactly,” Adam nodded. “Not full, proper angels, but just enough to not be a Vessel. That’d confuse them all nicely, I reckon. And Sam could get a full night’s sleep for once.”  
   
Sam shifted uncomfortably at the reminder of the way that Lucifer kept dream-stalking him.  
   
“I don’t understand,” Cas said.  
   
“Oh, it’s brilliant,” Gabriel wheezed, straightening up. His eyes were full of mirth. “Adam here is planning to give you a little bit of Grace. Yours, I’m guessing,” he told Adam, “seeing as how you’ve got more than the rest of us put together.”  
   
Adam grinned again. Gabriel went off into giggles.  
   
“And while that’s going on, I can trick Him Downstairs back into the Cage – shouldn’t be too hard, considering – and then I’ll sort out the whole apocalypse thing again, but better, so nothing goes wrong this time. No loose ends, this time round. It’ll all work out nicely.”  
   
He looked at Sam and Dean expectantly.  
   
“Let me guess, you need our permission,” Dean said dryly.  
   
“Well,” Adam demurred, “I don’t need it, but it seems polite. Seems to me you’ve have enough people messing you around without asking without me going and doing it.”  
   
He stared at Gabriel as he said it. The archangel looked suddenly wary, and a little guilty.  
   
“Okay,” said Sam resolutely.  
   
“Sam!”  
   
“What?” Sam asked Dean. “What else is there to do, Dean? This is the best plan I’ve heard of so far,  but if you’ve got a better one, I’ll be glad to hear it.”  
   
Dean looked mutinous.  
   
“Sam has a point, Dean,” Castiel told him gravely.  
   
Dean grumbled something.  
   
Adam nodded, and walked forward to tap two fingers to Sam’s forehead.  
   
The world spun dizzyingly for a second, everything expanding, and Sam blinked confused eyes and gaped.  
   
Adam was suddenly shining – _literally_ – with goodness and kindness and other things that Sam couldn’t begin to categorise, a brilliant shape of light and energy overlaying Sam’s normal vision. Sam could make out a bunch of what seemed to be wings, huge and numerous. It was disorienting. Light radiated from Adam in every direction, as far as Sam could see, and everything around him seemed to sort of _bend_ in it.  
   
“ _Whoah!_ ” Dean yelped, and Sam knew that he was seeing the same thing.  
   
Sam turned to look at Castiel, and Gabriel.  
   
At the same time as he saw a serious-faced dude in a trench coat, Sam found that he could see a blue-white ball of energy, squeezed right down to fit inside the human body it was occupying. The sight was unexpectedly alarming.  
   
Sam cut his eyes to Gabriel. This time, the energy was almost bursting from the angel’s Vessel, gold and intense and almost as blinding as Adam was.  
   
Unlike Adam, neither of the angels looked remotely human; they were just giant balls of energy and light. As Sam watched, a pair of wings flittered nervously at Castiel’s back, before melting back into the general dim glow of the rest of him.  
   
“Damn,” Dean said wonderingly. “Dude, is this what you always see?”  
   
Adam shrugged.  
   
“When I’m being human, I suppose so. It’s mostly like angel vision, but some things are a bit different. Gabriel’s hiding himself so that the other angels can’t see, but that doesn’t work on me. And you can all see me, because I’m wanting to be seen, but if I’m being human then usually only archangels can see me, and then only if they’re right near me.”  
   
“And the… aura?” Sam asked tentatively. Adam’s radiance streamed away for _miles._  
   
“Oh, that. Generally speaking, no one notices. You do, though, because you’ve got some of my Grace each, which means you’ll always be able to see me even when to everyone else I look human.”  
   
Sam and Dean exchanged helpless glances. This was all a bit much.  
   
“Now what?” Dean asked.  
   
Adam smiled.  
   
“Now I deal with Lucifer.” He looked at Gabriel. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to help with afterwards? Setting everything back to rights, and so on.”  
   
For a moment Gabriel looked twitchy, like he wanted to run. Then a change came over him, his expression firming and his chin going up as he met Adam’s eyes.  
   
“I guess someone needs to make sure you get it right this time,” he grumbled. “Sure, whatever, kiddo.”  
   
Adam’s eyes danced a bit at Gabriel’s put-upon act.  
   
He turned to Sam and Dean.  
   
“I’ll come back when it’s all over,” he told them cheerfully. “Enjoy the changes.”  
   
His wings fanned out, but right before he went, Adam tapped Castiel’s forehead.  
   
The blue-white of Castiel's Grace flashed, and when Sam blinked away the spots in his vision Castiel was shining almost as brightly as Gabriel, and Castiel was gaping comically at the young Antichrist.  
   
Then Adam was gone, Gabriel taking off right behind him.  
   
Sam, Dean and Cas stood in silence.  
   
“Well, damn,” Dean said at last.  
   
   
   
   
 


End file.
